Elena Delle Donne retires

[cupcakesnake]

- 2x MVP.
- 5x All-WNBA (4x First Team).
- 7x All-star.
- Member of the W25 (top 25 WNBA players of all-time).
- 2013 ROY
- 2015 Scoring champ
- Led Washington to the finals twice and won a championship.
- Best free throw shooter in professional basketball history (all due respect to Steph Curry and Steve Nash).
- Battled lyme disease her entire career.
- Had her prime cut short by covid and then injuries.
- Despite playing squarely during the primes of Maya Moore, Candace Parker, and Diana Taurasi, EDD had several seasons where she was considered the best player in the league.

[cdubbz]

Was wondering if she was goin to give it one last shot.

[cupcakesnake]

Was wondering if she was goin to give it one last shot.

Yeah, when I saw a "breaking news" image with her picture, I was hoping it was news of a signing/comeback, that she was joining a contender for a final run. Joining the Mercury or Aces or something. But alas, it's not to be. Post-pandemic EDD always looked like she was playing through a lot of pain. Happy for her to move on to the next phase of her life.

[GeorgeMarcus]

She's from my hometown Wilmington,DE and I had the chance to meet her on a few occasions. Nothing but respect

[jc23]

She had an issue with lyme disease right? i remember something about that coming up when she played in Chicago.

[cupcakesnake]

She had an issue with lyme disease right? i remember something about that coming up when she played in Chicago.

Yeah, she wrote a pretty wild Players Tribune article about it. She had to take 64 pills a day to be able to play professional basketball with the disease. She was also really angry at the league for not giving her a medical exception during the bubble. Honestly, a lot of her career sounds pretty difficult and torturous.
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/elena-delle-donne-wnba-season-lyme-disease

[Green Chile]

EDD is going to be on the Bird-Taurasi broadcast

[Doctor MJ]

- Best free throw shooter in professional basketball history (all due respect to Steph Curry and Steve Nash).

Thanks for profiling EDD ccs! She was perhaps a GOAT-level talent, with a career hampered a great deal unfortunately.

I wanted to hammer in the free throws because I think this is really noteworthy.

All-time NBA career 90+ FT% (NBA):

Elena Delle Donne 93.70%
Steph Curry 91.11%
Sabrina Ionescu 90.58%
Steve Nash 90.43%
Mark Price 90.39%

The gap between EDD and everyone else is really quite huge.

[mattg]

When she was coming up as a HS player she used to routinely DESTROY local high school boys who had offers to play D-1 college when she would scrimmage vs them. Like actually flat out embarrass dudes who would go on to play A-10 ball with her combo of shooting/size/footwork. I've still not seen anything like that with any women's player who has come around since.

[cupcakesnake]

I wanted to hammer in the free throws because I think this is really noteworthy.

All-time NBA career 90+ FT% (NBA):

Elena Delle Donne 93.70%
Steph Curry 91.11%
Sabrina Ionescu 90.58%
Steve Nash 90.43%
Mark Price 90.39%

The gap between EDD and everyone else is really quite huge.

She missed only 75 free throws her entire career, on 1190 attempts. That's insane. She was a pretty high volume free throw shooter as well (7 attempts per game in her first MVP season).

It gets even sillier in the playoffs. 95.4%. She missed 7 times in her entire playoff career (153 attempts). This breaks my brain.

[MrDollarBills]

EDD gave the game everything that she had and then more. She went through a lot man i hope she is okay and enjoys retirement.